Dental Practice Heroes
Where dentists learn how to cut clinical days while increasing profits - without sacrificing patient care, cutting corners, or cranking volume. We teach you how to grow a scalable practice through communication, leadership, and effective management.
Hosted by Dr. Paul Etchison, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach, and owner of a $6M collections group practice in the south suburbs of Chicago, we provide actionable advice for practice owners who want to intentionally create more time to enjoy their families, wealth, and deep personal fulfillment.
If you want to build a scalable practice framework that no longer stresses, drains, or relies on you for every little thing, we will teach you how and share stories of other dentists who have done it!
Dental Practice Heroes
My 3 Big Ownership Lessons of 2024
This episode emphasizes the importance of communication, systems, and family in achieving personal and professional growth. We delve into personal insights gained throughout the year as a dental coach and urge listeners to revisit their own priorities and goals for the new year.
• Importance of effective communication and culture in dental practices
• Role of systems and checklists in maintaining consistent expectations
• Need to prioritize family time alongside work achievements
• Setting achievable goals for business and personal fulfillment in 2025
• Encouraging reflection and intention-setting for the new year
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I help dentists create thriving practices that make more money, require less of their time, and empower their teams to run the office seamlessly—so they can focus on what matters most.
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Hello and welcome to Dental Practice Heroes. We are the show where we teach you how to make more money and work less clinical days. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with me today. I am recording this on New Year's Eve and this is a time for many where we sit back and reflect on the year and start thinking about what we're going to be doing in the following year, and this year was a really special one for me. This was the year that I really leaned into the podcast and coaching as the primary focus of my life, versus where it's previously always been my dental practice, and it's been a lot of fun. I've been really enjoying myself. I've been really finding a lot of fulfillment with helping other dentists and watching them grow and teaching them things to avoid from my own mistakes and just teaching them the things that I wish I would have known at their point in their career. But I wanted to do more of a riffing episode, a little less scripted and more so. Just I want to talk about what are the three big things, my biggest ahas from this year, and I would say the first one was that communication skills and culture trumps strategy. Every day of the week.
Speaker 0:I have worked with so many dentists and the consistent theme that I see with dentists that do very well with my coaching, that implement things fast and they get results so much quicker than other dentists is that they have communication skills. And what I mean by communication skills is I don't mean like they're amazing leaders and they know how to talk to people and they deal with conflict and all those things really well. I mean that's all part of it. But what I see is when I take on a client and their team likes them like when I do, I'd start off with a survey. I start off with an anonymous team survey and when I get back that they are liked and respected by their team, I know this person is gonna be very successful. And the reason being is when they are liked and respected, that shows me that they are communicating with their team. So I don't think it necessarily comes down to like how good of a communicator are you, because I've worked with bad communicators. In my opinion, I would never tell them this, but some people need a little bit more help in communication. But when people are doing the things they need to do to communicate with their team, such as having meetings, having one-on-ones, and not making their team feel bad or feel shame for when they mess things up, which keeps communication lines open they tend to do very well and I've had one client this year that was so much fun for me to work with and this was somebody that maybe didn't have the best relationships with their team and you know we had to work on a lot of things a lot of communication, a lot of one-on-ones, a lot of meetings.
Speaker 0:We had to handle a lot of conflict. But what we did over the course of a year is we turned over about half the team. We got clear on the core values and what we were doing, and about half the team. We got clear on the core values and what we were doing and now we've built from the foundation up and now he's got this great practice went from like 700K to like 1.5 million. He's bringing on an associate soon and it's just been so fulfilling for me to watch him do this because this was someone he would admit to you. He'd be like yeah, I'm not the best communicator and I would agree with him, but I think where he is now versus a year ago is so good. So that draws me to this conclusion that communication and creating culture at your practice, that is the most important thing that you can be doing as an owner. All right, my second big takeaway is that systems and following the systems is super important as well. And let me tell you what I learned this year.
Speaker 0:We had a few things happen at my practice where there was some expectations not being met by some people working at my practice and we had to address them. And the people that were not meeting the expectations were pretty sure in their hearts that they were meeting expectations. So we had to dig down into what are the expectations and how do we communicate and make sure these expectations are met. And it came down to the same old stuff Checklists. It came down to checklists Are the checklists being completed? It came down to checklists Are the checklists being completed? No, this is why expectations are not being met and it just reinforces that fact that we think we're great dental business owners.
Speaker 0:Right, but sometimes these things happen and it just humbles us and it says man, I know what I should be doing, but the fact of the matter is I'm not doing it. And that's when we see issues in offices. We know what we should be doing, but the fact of the matter is I'm not doing it, and that's when we see issues in offices. We know what we should be doing, we know the process, we know the best practices. I look at my coaching clients and I think I'm batting like close to a thousand here. People that follow the process get results. They cut their clinical days, they increase their profit, but they have to do it systematically.
Speaker 0:So we create these systems and practices, but they need to be followed, and that's the challenging part is, if you can't get the team to follow them or if you can't hold them accountable, you will have issues. And this is what I experienced this year in a particular part of my own practice, and so we had to go back down to basics. We had to say, okay, these are the checklists, let's make sure they're done. If there are things that are not completed on the checklist, we're going to review and say, hey, should this even be on the checklist, or why is it not getting done? It seems very basic, but I think you can get away with these sort of things when you're a small solo doc. Once you get to a team above 10 people, it becomes a little bit more of a challenge where you have to lean into these processes and protocols and really just do things by the book that you have created so that you can get results. All right.
Speaker 0:My third aha this year was that time with family is so freaking important, man, and I spent so much of my career like thinking that if I just got to a dollar amount, if I just got myself cut out enough clinical days, I could get to this magical point where spending time with my family would come easy, it would be just so leisurely and it would just be natural and all this stuff. And what I found was that I had everything I needed to spend time with my family the whole time. I wasn't prioritizing it. I was prioritizing the growth of the business because I felt like if I could get this business to a certain point before I turned 40, then I would just kick up my feet and I'd have all this time, which was the reality. But when I had all that time, I started focusing on okay, I need to spend time with my family, even when I don't want to, because sometimes for some of us I don't know if you can relate to this working on my business really gets me going. It's like I don't have to force myself to get motivated for it. I enjoy it. I like the results, I like the strategizing, I like the coming up with solutions to problems and sometimes, you know, spending time with my family is just kind of like really easy. You know, there's no challenge to it. It's not engaging. And what I found is that if you make it engaging, if you put the energy to say I am going to have a good time right now with my family and I'm going to engage them and we're going to go do something or we're going to shut off our phones and we're going to talk, whatever it is, if you put that initial effort in, you get the results, just like you would if you put that initial effort into your business, you get the results. So we're just coming back from New York City, which we spent.
Speaker 0:We went the day after Christmas. We had a great time there. We saw some plays, we got to figure out how to ride the subway. I mean that was cool. We were walking everywhere and we were taking Ubers and stuff, and I'm like you know what? I want to figure out how to do this subway thing. So I did my research, like I usually would, and I figured out how to use the subway and we took the subway to Times Square and it was really awesome. And then we went to the Hershey's place and we got the Reese's like the Reese's peanut butter filling. You can get it in a bowl there which is just like dude man. It was awesome, but we had that. It was so good. You don't feel the greatest after you eat it, but it was so good.
Speaker 0:And then we got back on the subway and my daughter looks and she goes oh, somebody dropped their Reese's and she kicks it with her toe. But guess what? It wasn't Reese's on the subway car floor, it was some bum that took a dump and it's now stuck to my daughter's shoe and that was. You know, the tears come, the screaming comes. It's gross, it smells and as soon as she touched it with her shoe I smelled it and I said that's not Reese's. But she was convinced it was Reese's. I mean, she was in the mindset that we just came from the Hershey's store with the Reese's. I mean it was some sort of Hershey's, but it wasn't the kind that you want to eat. But you know what we had. It was a traumatic moment. And now that we're home back in Chicago, we talk about this story because it's funny that she thought there was Hershey's on the floor of the subway car and it was some dirty and it's a funny story now.
Speaker 0:And we have so many funny stories and memories from the past four days of spending time in New York City as a family and that's the stuff that I've really reflect on this year and all the things that I've done with each of my daughters. I've taken them both on one-on-one vacations. I went on one-on-one vacations with my wife. We went on a few couples vacations with other couples. That's the good stuff. And when I reflect on my whole entire dental career, there was nothing keeping me from doing this my entire dental career. I always had enough money to make this happen. I always had the time. I just wasn't prioritizing it.
Speaker 0:So if I have some advice for you is that don't be waiting for that someday, because one, it may never come and two, you don't need to wait. You already have everything you need to have solid relationships in your life. You've just got to put a little bit of effort forth and you got to realize that the business is always going to be there. Chances are, if you're someone who listens to this podcast, that you're the type of person that's always going to work, no matter what. You're someone who listens to this podcast, that you're the type of person that's always going to work, no matter what. You're not just gonna sit on your butt and retire and do nothing. I have yet to meet somebody that's doing that happily. Most people need something to do, so don't be all set on. Hey, I gotta retire when I'm 35. I gotta have enough money when I'm 40. Just get enough to survive and live your lifestyle, and live your life to the fullest with your family.
Speaker 0:So, as a listener, I would really like, if you set some goals this year. I think this is really important. I'm going to tell you what my three goals are for 2025. And they're not huge goals. You know I'm not shooting so much for the big business sort of stuff. I want to spend more time with my family. That's like my biggest goal.
Speaker 0:But if you had to look at, what am I doing with dental practice, what am I doing with dentistry? This year, I really want to open another practice and I'll tell you why is that. When you sell your practice and you partner up with a group. It's great. You get this big financial windfall and then you have all this money in the bank and it's really cool. But at the same time I miss the cashflow. I miss that consistent, safe amount of money that comes into my checking account each month, whereas now I might get a large sum when I buy an apartment and I rehab it and sell it. I might get a large sum from some other investments, but it's not a consistent thing anymore and I miss that. So there's part of me that wants to open another dental practice and have a little bit more ownership than what I'm left with at my current practice. I still own a little small amount, but I just want more cash flow. So one thing I want to do this year I want to open another practice and I think I want to take it over and I'm going to do it with some people on my team and we're going to turn it around like we do for our coaching clients and it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to doing that.
Speaker 0:The second goal that I have for myself this year is I want to do an event. I really want to do a Dental Practice Heroes event where we have team come out and I have this vision of this big weekend thing. It involves the team. You would bring your whole team and they would split up and train with my team and I think we could just provide so much value there. I just think that would be really cool to do. So that's a goal of mine. I want to do a Dental Practice Heroes weekend event. I don't know where we'll do it. I don't think we'll do it in Chicago, but maybe we will. I don't know. I guess the time will tell.
Speaker 0:And the last thing I want to do is just continue to coach dentists but continue to not take on too many clients. Take on too many clients. I love my clients and I love when I have the energy to devote it to them and help them grow their practices. But I've been in positions before where I've taken on too many clients and then it becomes not fun, it becomes more of a job. So I want to make sure that I stay true to that.
Speaker 0:But at this point, with my coaching I mean I've been coaching dentists for now five plus years, whereas I started out I was just more of a Q and a sort of coach Like hey, ask me questions, I'll help you. I have a down to like a process now that I found that works well. As much as I want to just get you on a zoom call and just tell you everything to do, I have found it is more effective for me to take you through a process that I've created and, you know, guide you through it. So it's more of I am teaching you how to fish rather than just giving you the fish, and it has been so successful for my maybe last two years of clients and not that my previous clients didn't have any success they did but it's just becoming so predictable now that I really want to refine that process, as I've been doing, and help more people.
Speaker 0:There's something just so fun about seeing dentists make more money and cut their days. I don't know why. I just feel like it's because I feel like there's an impact. I feel like this dental owner is going to spend more time with their family, more time with their kids, and then those people are going to spend more time with their kids. I just feel like, deep down, I'm making a bigger impact by doing that. So those are my big three goals for this year. So I hope you had a great 2024 and you are as well excited about 2025.
Speaker 0:I think it's very important. You know we're off, most of us are off for this time. Take, sit down, even if you got to go in the bathroom and just lock the door. Sit down for 15, 20 minutes and really just think about what do I want this year, what do I really want? And it's easy to focus on the practice, but I want you to think about personally, the relationships in your life, your spirituality, all those things, your mental health. What do you really want this year and what is it going to take to get it? Because I think there is nothing that you can't have if you just put a little intentionality into it, a little bit of planning and make a commitment to yourself, and I think all of us are capable of that.
Speaker 0:Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you like what you hear, please share it with a friend. Please leave us a review, let us know. I want to reach more people, but I thank you so much for spending your drive or whatever time you are listening to your podcast with me. Let's look forward to an amazing and prosperous 2025. Thank you.
